Tell Them That She's Not Scared
by tthenoblewarr
Summary: He understands that he is no savior, but for now he sees nothing wrong with pretending. He finds it funny how after six years, their roles have been reversed. Only she did save him and in turn he had destroyed her. Lit.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** The other story is currently on a hiatus as I have lost any desire to continue to write for such a horrible piece of work. I currently despise the plotline I chose and have decided to create a new one. I'm hoping I don't fall out of love with this one too. Here's hoping.

**Disclaimer:** Nothing is mine.

* * *

"I'm sorry."

Those are the first words she tells him as he opens his apartment door at 3:30 in the morning. He doesn't understand what's going on. It's been months since he's last seen her presence and weeks since he's last heard her voice. He sullenly thinks it must be some kind of dream, a cruel game his unconscious mind is playing on him. He's been tortured by thoughts of her for so long now though that he's become almost numb to it and his shock is suddenly replaced by an unsettling longing in the pit of his stomach.

He closes his eyes.

Wake up, wake up, wake up.

But when he reopens them, she's still standing in front of him with her hair in a hairsprayed mess of curls and her cheeks immersed with black specked rivers. "I shouldn't have come," she whispers to the floor but does not move.

He wants to tell her that she's right and she should go back home and just leave, leave, leave. But he begins to wonder if she really is wrong and if she really has ever had a home since leaving Stars Hollow and if she really should just stay, stay, stay. He finds his answer in the way she's carrying herself; her arms wrapped tightly around her torso and her shoulders slumped in a manner that he does not recognize as one she usually dons.

But he does not know anything about _usually_ any more. Not with her. He did once. But those memories had faded long ago with his youth.

He looks at her closely and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that she has been broken again. But instead of her monthly phone call of pleas ('_I needed to hear your voice. Read to me. Please. Help me forget. Please, please, please.), _he's been introduced to a new form of suffering. Unable to say a word, all he does is step aside as he grants her access into her own personal sanctuary.

She pulls her knit, knee-length, button-down sweater tighter around her and when she looks up at him with surprise, he half expects her to run back to the blonde jackass that inevitably brought her to this point of breaking. But with a shaky breath, she enters his apartment and breathes in the smell of cinnamon and old books and…Jess.

"I'm sorry," she says again, averting her eyes, always averting her eyes. He idly wonders if she's ashamed of herself for coming to him in her times of distress, as if it's wrong to want to be near him.

And it is wrong. He knows this and she knows this and neither one has the heart to say it out loud.

He doesn't respond and instead makes a subtle gesture indicating that she may sit on the couch if she pleases. She does and she sits all the while watching him with lazy eyes as he takes listless strides to his kitchen. He pulls out a mug from the top right cupboard and places it on the island behind him. He turns his back to her again, searching the cupboard once more but this time he fights his way to the back of the cabinet.

He is making her coffee.

There's a tightening in his chest that he refuses to comprehend as he realizes that he has just admitted to keeping a secret stash of her sacred elixir in his cupboards. He sees her smirk sadly, possibly making the recognition that he has never had an affinity for coffee. And yet he still keeps some hidden away after all of these years for secret moments like these; moments that were not supposed to take place except for in the back if his mind; moments that have never happened before now.

"I like your place," she says dumbly from where she sits, unsure of how to go about this and not liking the silence that he's been offering. But her voice is unrecognizable to her and all he does is nod his comprehension.

He wants to ask her why she's here; why she's tormenting him like she must love to do. But all that comes out is, "Do you need a place to stay tonight?" because he can't be the one to ask the questions she desperately wants him to ask.

Her reply is weak. "Yes."

His is solid. "Okay." And he brings her the warm cup of coffee he grew to perfect years ago at a diner he thought he'd never miss.

He sits down on the other end of his couch, mindful of how her hands can't seem to stop shaking. He wants to reach out and steady them as she sets the cup down on the coffee table, but knows that he cannot. It isn't his place any more and maybe it never was. Either way, now it's the man's that drove her here. He wonders what could have happened to bring her here, out of all places, why here? He knows her phone calls are because she's lost and confused in a world that was never meant for her, but does not understand how her appearance has any significance.

He thought it had been a silent agreement that they were never supposed to let this happen. Did she not get it?

No. No, she does not and no, he doesn't want her to. He understands that he is no savior, but for now he sees nothing wrong with pretending. He finds it funny how after six years, their roles have been reversed. Only she did save him and in turn he had destroyed her.

The silence consumes him and it becomes too much now that he notices the hushed tears staining her skin. "I'll go make the bed," he tells her as he stands.

"I didn't bring any clothes." _Help me. _Again, she never makes eye contact and her voice is small and soft and childlike. He's not sure he likes it.

"You can borrow some." _I'm trying. _His replies are short, always short and he vaguely remembers a time when banter would last hours with her. "Go get yourself washed up," he says as he nods in the general direction of his bathroom.

She complies willingly and he swears she looks so defeated but it's her and she can't be. Not her, never her, no, no, no. "The clothes?" she asks before she completely closes the door behind her.

"I'll knock."

She nods before she disappears and he tries to keep his breaths even because this cannot be happening and he does not know what to do and Jess Mariano always knows what to do and if he doesn't then he makes up some bullshit that passes for honesty but right now he's at a loss and breathe, Jess.

Inhale. Exhale.

Again, again, again.

There you go.

He has made the bed and has an old wife beater tank and a pair of boxers in his hands for her to change into. He knocks has he promised he would and he hears something clatter to the tile floor of his bathroom. He refuses to call out her name, unwilling to show concern this early on.

The door opens and she is standing there and her blue eyes just don't sparkle like they used to.

"What happened?" he asks, unsure if he's referring to the dissolved shimmer in her eyes or the commotion caused seconds ago.

"You scared me," she answers quietly, again looking to the floor. "I dropped your brush." He didn't even know he owned one.

"Sorry." He clears his throat, "Here," and hands her the small pile of clothes. He swears he sees a flash of worry in her lifeless eyes, but the flash is gone as quick as it appeared and he begins to think his mind is playing tricks on him. Maybe this entire scenario is one big mindfuck and he shakes his head to rid himself of it.

But when he focuses again, he is still here and she is still in his bathroom and all of it is still very, very real.

When he hears her emerge from the bathroom, he is making a bed out of his couch. He refuses to share a bed with her as it would only rip away at the already deteriorating insides of his chest. But when he glances up at her, he's pretty sure his attempt to hold himself together has been proven futile. Piece by piece, he can feel his insides splintering into nothing, but his face betrays what every fiber of his being is screaming.

His expression never falters in it's stoicism and he hopes she cannot see the way his hands clench and his knuckles turn white.

The newly exposed porcelain skin is marred by ugly splotches of blacks and blues and purples and his lungs constrict in his chest as he thinks of how this could have happened. He wants to go to her, to hold her, to hug her tightly to him, to tell her its okay, I'm here, you're here, you're okay now, I promise, always.

But he does not and he know he cannot because she is not his and she hasn't been for far too long.

He swallows thickly, harshly.

"Goodnight, Jess," she whispers to him, finally making the eye contact he had wished for. But the wish quickly becomes a curse when he sees the subtle expression of _fix me please, I'm begging you, I'll do anything_ in her dull eyes.

"Night." _I can't, I'm sorry, I don't know how, you shouldn't have come to me._

She turns to enter his bedroom and he wonders how many more marks are infused into skin he cannot see. And he wonders if she wonders what he's thinking. She does but decides not to comment on it, feeling too tired now to have the conversation she wished he would've brought up.

But verbal thoughts are not his forte and they both know this and he wishes he could tell her that he's sorry.

"Jess?" he hears her call as he turns off the light and makes himself comfortable on his couch.

"Yeah."

"It's okay."

He almost laughs at this. It should be him telling her this and not her telling him this. But because of his fucking ego and the goddamn walls he puts around himself, he wouldn't let himself utter those words earlier. She wants him to understand that she knows he is doing what he can and can't do much with their current situation. To do so would be a form of suicide and she _understands,_ she does, she does, she does.

But she doesn't know that he has already been plagued by thoughts of coming to her rescue and it kills him more and more every time he realizes that he cannot.

He does not have the strength and he fears that he never will.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** Sorry it's taken so long. I went through and proofread everything. I didn't realize it had italicized everything after Jess's thought near the middle/end there. My apologies :] Hope this is easier to read now.

**Disclaimer:** See previous chapter.

* * *

He tried to save her once. He really did. He came to her in the shadows, wanting desperately to be her knight in shining armor and begging her to let him portray a character that he was entirely unaccustomed to. He'd sweep her up and they would ride off into the sunset on his white horse while a cheesy ballad resounded as the screen faded to black.

But she had screamed out in protest. _No!_ And her fraud in aluminum foil had swept up what little dignity he had left, riding off in his beat up and rusted old car into the dusk of night. A broken record was all he heard.

Stay.

Leave.

Stay.

Leave.

Stay.

Leave.

That was his mantra. But he is all grown up now and he realizes that maybe 'happily ever after's were just not made for him. No. Jess Mariano deserved a much more wretched fate than that. It would only be appropriate and entirely fitting. A tortured soul led to tortured endeavors.

It is this thought that keeps him awake as he strains to hear her breathing in the other room, his room; a sign that she is good and well despite her appearance. Her breaths are hollow and ragged and he wonders if she has even fallen asleep at all in the past unbearably long fifty seven minutes. He shifts on his couch in an attempt to ease the crick forming in his neck.

He stops his movements, however, when he hears the pads of her feet floating along his hardwood floors.

"Rory?" he whispers into the darkness of his apartment.

Her breath hitches a little and he wonders if it's because he scared her or if it has to do with something else or maybe a mixture of the two.

"I didn't mean to wake you." There's a hint of panic in her voice, but she redeems herself quickly as she clears her throat of the tangible grip fear has on it. "I couldn't sleep and I forgot my coffee out here."

He wants to tell her that it's been cold for a while now and if she really wanted to sleep, she wouldn't be up looking for caffeine. But he stays silent because every time he looks at her now, his voice refuses to work and his muscles tense up involuntarily.

He sits up and switches on the light closest to him, never once getting up from his spot on the couch. "Sit." he tells her, his voice groggy.

"Jess…" she says as a warning, but her voice comes out exhausted and she hopes he doesn't catch it.

He does, but he tosses it aside and wonders if he will regret this later. "Rory, please." Years ago, he never would've begged. But he was older now and with age came weariness. He had grown soft, but only with her did his rough exterior crumble.

Only with her.

"Okay," is all she can strangle out and in seconds she is sitting beside him.

_Bring me down with you_, he wants to tell her. _For if you fall, everything I once knew falls too. _All of his stability lies with her and he is terrified that if she breaks, he will be forced to collapse as well.

But he pushes the thought aside; scolds himself for ever thinking such a thing. He will fight for her when she cannot do so on her own. _Out of ammo and out of lives and out of credits. Though my damage is low, if you fall, I will stand over your body and begin to fight where you ended; in the blood; in the mud; until they bring me down. _He wishes he could tell her these things. But instead he settles for, "Tell me why you're here."

She inhales a sharp gasp of air and contemplates how to go about answering his demand. He sees her glance around his living room, searching his walls, shelves, and hardwood floors for an answer she can't seem to think of on her own. "I don't know."

"Damnit, Rory!" he snaps quietly and almost immediately regrets it when he sees her tense up, though she tries to hide it. "You do know," he insists, trying to make eye contact with her. "You know. Just…tell me. You can't keep doing this to me, Ror."

She knows this, but never thought that it would ever be a problem. She soon realizes that she was stupid for thinking such things. She's been stringing him along for months now with her phone calls. They all started when her fiancé had hit the bottle.

It didn't take her much long after that to realize that alcoholics were only romantic in the movies.

Jess had told her that once after watching some cheesy 80's movie back when they were still in high school.

"I…," she stumbles. "I just…"

He's sick of her games. He's never made a bet in his life, but, God, did the two of them love to gamble with desire. "Just what, Rory? Stop with the bullshit already." His eyes are golden and imploring and she doesn't think she's ever seen anything as sincere in her life. "Please."

"I just needed to be somewhere I felt safe."

He studies her for a second, focuses on a purple mark near her left shoulder. Instead of responding to her previous statement, _I will _always_ be your safe haven when you need it,_ he asks a more serious question. "How long?"

She glances up, looks him dead in the eyes and wonders if he really dares to ask her. "What?" Her hands are shaking.

"How long ago did…," he hesitates before he timidly reaches out a hand to gently graze the discolored skin he'd been focusing on. "-did he- did this start?" He's not entirely sure he wants to know the answer.

She sucks in another breath at his touch, but responds with her voice never once faltering. "When the phone calls started."

He stares at her in disbelief as he drops his hand back onto his lap. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I thought I could handle it."

"Then why'd you start the phone calls?"

"Because deep down I knew I couldn't. Handle it, I mean."

"I don't understand." He had proved himself to be unreliable on more than one occasion in their past. He wants to understand why it was him that she went to.

"You were my crutch, Jess," she says simply.

He wonders how that could be. He can barely support himself and his shithole apartment is proof of that. He avoids her statement yet again and responds with another question. "Why are you still with him, Rory?" His expression is pained and she is fully aware of this. She wants to be with him and only him but she's gotten herself too involved. She isn't sure how to untangle herself from the web her fiancé has woven for her.

"I don't-" She cuts herself off as tears begin to sting her eyes but she is determined to keep them at bay. She's not weak and she wants to prove this to him as much as she can. She doesn't need him to save her. She just needs him to aid her in her struggle. She refuses to be the damsel in distress. "I don't know. It wasn't always like this," she tries to explain.

"You're right," he tells her, his gaze hard and unwavering. "It wasn't. You could've come with me, you know. All those years ago. We could have avoided this." He hopes she knows what he's referring to and when he sees the look of recognition cross her face, he knows she understands.

"No, Jess. How could you just expect me to drop everything and run away with you?" She says it in a way that isn't harsh because she knows that he knows that it was a stupid idea.

"What do you call what you're doing right now?" he bites back smoothly doing his best to avoid conflict while still giving it enough emphasis so she gets his point. She doesn't respond and he knows he's hit a nerve. "You should get some sleep," he finally says after a few moments of awkward silence. He stands and offers his hand out to her so she can mimic his actions.

He walks her back to his room and wonders how he's keeping so calm when he can feel her hand shaking in his own. It hasn't stopped doing that since she's arrived here and he speculates that maybe her entire body is trembling. But he has yet to get close enough to discover that for himself.

"Goodnight, Rory," he whispers as he lets her hand go.

"Jess…" she breathes, never moving from her spot in front of him.

And before he can say anything in response, her lips find their way to his own. He wants to pull back; to tell her this is wrong. She's engaged, God, why does she have to be engaged? But he no longer has the strength in him to deny her. He's positive that he lost the will to do so long ago, months before this moment right here in front of his bedroom door. So he responds to her actions by gliding his tongue along her bottom lip in such a way that doesn't demand entrance, only a request that she not toy with his emotions any longer.

And it is then that he realizes that she may never know what she does to him. His hands move to her shoulders to push her away gently, as if he's afraid she'll break if he applies too much pressure.

The look in her eyes at his rejection is one much worse than heartbreak.

"I'll see you in the morning, Rory," he says lamely, but still manages to make eye contact with her in an attempt to convey how hard it was for him to pull away from her advance.

She runs a shaky hand through her tangled hair and she realizes that she doesn't know what to say. "Yeah," is all that comes out of her response.

He nods his head sadly and turns to make his way back to his couch.

He thought he had the perfect story once. And she was supposed be the happy ending. But words are failing him now and he isn't sure the right combination of them can fix what her fiancé has broken.


End file.
